Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, indeed. I rise with great pleasure to speak on the Infrastructure Australia Bill 2008. Only time will tell whether this is just window dressing or whether in fact it will work and deliver real and tangible benefits in infrastructure across Australia. I want to firstly put the record of the coalition government. When we came to government in 1996 we were confronted with a massive debt that was left to us by the previous Labor government—a $96 billion debt that we had to start to pay off. Our international credit rating had been downgraded. We had to not only pay off the debt but get our credit rating restored. Then we could start to invest in real infrastructure. We started to do that in a very significant way. Had we as a coalition government inherited the economy that we have given to the Labor Party—no debt, money in the bank, a AAA credit rating—we would have been able to do a great deal more about infrastructure, but we had to deal with the legacy of 13 years of the mismanagement by Labor government, as well as mismanagement by Labor governments right across Australia. State Labor governments collectively have something like a $60 billion debt today. They are also impacting on the interest rate rises because they are in the financial markets out there having to source cash to meet those commitments caused by their own mismanagement. I say that at the outset to highlight the fact that the Labor Party have been given the golden goose in relation to the economy. Let us see if any golden eggs can be laid in this term—probably the only term that they will have in government—by Infrastructure Australia and this bill before the House, which is a commitment of the Labor Party.

I represent an electorate of some 560,000 square kilometres, stretching from just west of Brisbane down to Benarkin and Blackbutt—not far from the member for Oxley’s boundary, in fact—all the way through to the Northern Territory border. Within the boundaries of the federal electorate of Maranoa we have important mining and agricultural industries which are great wealth creators for this nation. In fact, the coal industry—and I am sure that the member for Oxley would be interested in this—is the largest export earner for the state of Queensland of any industry. The Surat coal basin, virtually unexploited at this point and the largest coal reserve in Australia, will over the next five to 10 years have a significant number of mines opened up in it, underpinning the importance of the need for infrastructure investment in my electorate of Maranoa.

The beef industry is another one. It is the second largest export earner by value—as the member for Barker would appreciate, I am sure—from the state of Queensland. Think of the number of jobs that both those industries create. All of them—the beef industry, the coal industry, the oil and gas industry—are not located in CBD Brisbane down in George Street. They are located out in the regions and in the rural and remote parts of Queensland. But every Queenslander and every Australian benefits from these two industries as well as from many other industries, from the wealth that they create and the jobs that they provide for families. We all benefit from these great resources.

Since 2001 the coalition has invested some $102 million in road infrastructure in the seat of Maranoa. One of the most important road infrastructure investments that the coalition invested in, when we started to get the Labor debt under control, was Roads to Recovery. We are starting to hear whispers from the corridors out there on the blue carpet that this program is going to be gutted. It is for the chop from the finance minister. Mr Deputy Speaker Thomson, I am sure you are alerted to this in your own constituency. Roads to Recovery is a program in which the coalition government doubled road funding, paying that money direct to local governments so that they could invest it in local roads of importance in their own community.

One of the great benefits of that program was that it went to local government, and every dollar went on roads. Had we directed that money through state bureaucracies, five, 10, 15 or 20 per cent of it could have been used up in bureaucracies. Now, before a kilometre of bitumen or sealed road has been put down in any of those local government areas, we hear whispers—as we heard a week ago that the carer payment was to be axed. Next: ‘No, that’s not right.’ It took about five days to turn that one around, but we hear the whispers coming out. Roads to Recovery is in the finance minister’s and the Treasurer’s sights. They know that a large portion of that money goes out into coalition seats in rural and regional and remote parts of Australia, bringing great benefit to those communities. I know the minister has got his eye on Roads to Recovery, but I call on him to commit to the Roads to Recovery program in this year’s budget and subsequent budgets while ever they hold the Treasury benches because of the importance of that infrastructure spending that local governments invest in roads and because every dollar that comes from the Commonwealth goes into roads, not into state bureaucracies.

The coalition committed some $128 million out of AusLink 2 to an investment in the Warrego Highway on the western side of Groom and in my own electorate of Maranoa during the election campaign. I know that the then opposition, now government, committed some $50 million—and this was confirmed by the Prime Minister when he went to Roma unannounced to the local councils, when he went with the agriculture minister to a property near my own home town; in fact near my own home. But they confirmed that that $50 million would be spent on the Warrego Highway, upgrading the highway from Mitchell to Roma so that those type 2 roadtrains could come from Mitchell through to Roma. Many of those type 2 roadtrains come from Western Australia, carrying livestock, carrying cattle. Many of them of course are in the reverse—they couple-up in Roma to go to Darwin and to the other side of Australia with freight and goods into the mining communities and bringing much-needed infrastructure into those communities. But we will be watching with great interest to see when that first $50 million starts to roll out on the Warrego Highway between Mitchell and Roma. I am watching with great interest and, if that is part of Infrastructure Australia, I will welcome it. I will be surprised when the money comes but I will certainly welcome it because it is indeed long overdue.

The other part of the Warrego Highway that is in urgent need of upgrading, which the coalition committed to prior to the election as part of the AusLink 2 funding, is the section from Chinchilla to Dalby. That money would have started to roll out on 1 July this year—not next year or the year after in an election year; on 1 July 2008. That was our commitment. The road from Chinchilla, particularly between Warra and McAllister, is very dangerous—in fact we have had a very tragic death there in the last 18 months. The Warrego Highway is a national highway linking Brisbane and the southern states right through to Mount Isa and Darwin. It is one of the major arterial corridors of our nation. I say to the minister: please, start that money for the Warrego Highway rolling out as of 1 July this year so that we will not see any more tragic accidents on this section of it.

I heard the member for Groom talking earlier about the second range crossing at Toowoomba. That is another vital piece of infrastructure. The coalition committed some $700 million to it during the election campaign, but did we hear the same from the Labor Party? No, we did not. That second range crossing is a vital piece of infrastructure which would link the south-east corner of Queensland, the port of Brisbane, through to the resource areas of western Queensland, right up through to the Surat coal basin and up into Darwin, and all points in between.

Around Dalby at the moment we are seeing large numbers of coal seam methane gas producers tap into the coal seam underneath the Darling Downs and right out to Wandoan and Chinchilla. But coming with that is the power generation infrastructure. Two gas-fired power stations are under construction right now to use coal seam methane, a very clean source of energy that is going to provide a much-needed boost to the capacity of electricity generation in Queensland. When the government are looking at Infrastructure Australia, they must relook at the second range crossing. Why is that? Because right now in Dalby they are setting up a thousand-person camp for the workers on the two new power stations. But what will happen with the construction of these power stations? All the steel, generators, boilers and any other infrastructure that goes with power stations will come from Brisbane, often having come from overseas to the port of Brisbane. The infrastructure will have to be transported across the Great Dividing Range and it will have to travel through Toowoomba to get through to the Surat coal basin where the coal seam methane gas-fired power stations are being established.

We also committed to the Cunningham Highway upgrade, particularly at Cunningham’s Gap. So often the highway at Cunningham’s Gap suffers from rockfalls, particularly in winter when there has been some rainfall through that part of my electorate which joins onto the seat of Blair. We had a proposition to invest some $20 million into the highway at Cunningham’s Gap, not only for safety reasons but also for the continuity of transport so that that highway is not cut off because of a rockfall. That is the main arterial link alternative to the Pacific Highway to Sydney, Melbourne and down through the Newell Highway. The Cunningham Highway is a very important link from the south-east corner of Queensland to the New England Highway and down through New South Wales to Sydney.

I know that we are still waiting on engineers to complete their reports on what is the best solution, but my suggestion to the engineers was that, where there is a danger of rocks falling on the road, perhaps we ought to put a form of ‘tunnel’ over the highway so that if rocks do fall in the future they fall straight over the tunnel-like roof and down into the valley. It will be a very expensive exercise to complete the stabilisation of the upside of that highway through Cunningham’s Gap but I do urge the minister to look at the infrastructure need through Infrastructure Australia to make sure that that is also a project that gets underway sooner rather than later. I hope it is identified as a priority by the minister.

I want to touch very quickly on another important aspect of infrastructure, and that is airport infrastructure. In our term in government, we invested significant sums of money in safety upgrades for many of our airports in rural Australia. That helped many local councils complete the fencing of their airports, not only at the airport terminal side but also round the perimeters. Why? Because so often in drought times there is a risk that landing aircraft could collide with kangaroos on the airstrips, particularly at night.

These airstrips are vital not only for medical evacuations through the Royal Flying Doctor Service but also other passenger services that service the outback of my electorate. There is one particular airport I wanted to touch on in the limited time I have left for me. I have been in touch with the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia only today on this issue. It concerns the remote community of Bedourie in the Diamantina shire, population 80—the shire with a greater geographic area than the state of Tasmania. It is the headquarters of the Diamantina shire. The state Labor government in Queensland, to their great credit, subsidise the air services out into the remote parts of Queensland. A new contract that has only just been let will see that air service—going right out through Windorah, Birdsville, Bedourie, Boulia and up to Mount Isa from Brisbane and return—upgraded from a Metroliner to the new Saab 42-seater. That will revolutionise, if I can put it that way, the opportunities for tourism in the outback of Queensland, because it is a 42-seater, it will have a flight attendant, a toilet on board and all of those other facilities that so often people just take for granted on the more coastal routes.

One of the issues the Diamantina shire is confronting is the fact they have to upgrade the Bedourie airport. They have to lengthen the runway and upgrade the lighting for emergencies at night. The state government has provided the Diamantina Shire Council with some $900,000 but they are $900,000 short. I spoke to the parliamentary secretary this morning and I said: ‘I would hope that, under the remote area program that we had as a coalition government—the airport upgrade program—there would be some money made available to this very small remote community. They struggle to build these facilities on their own. They have a very small rate base, as you can imagine, with only 80 people in the whole town and community. I suggest that $300,000 to $400,000 would certainly ease the pain on their own ratepayers. While I acknowledge that the state government has provided some $900,000, they are still $900,000 short.’ In the interim, while this airstrip is upgraded, they will have to run some 160 kilometres down a dirt road to Birdsville to pick up passengers and health workers and freight twice a week. It is an urgent request. I appreciate the fact that the parliamentary secretary has already provided the department with a brief on that issue. I am hoping we will get a positive response from the government to assist this small rural community.

Finally, regarding medical infrastructure, the coalition had the Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund, which was part of our Regional Partnerships program. That has been villainised by the government today, but it is a very important program. If there is something that we can do to assist in relation to medical facilities in rural and remote communities, it will be through the Rural Medical Infrastructure Program. In fact, in my own electorate the Birdsville medical clinic received some $900,000 from that infrastructure fund. At Aramac they received some $400,000 and Charleville—which is in my constituency as well—received some $400,000. The Rural Medical Infrastructure Fund allowed those communities to put a medical precinct in those communities. Doctors can come to the town and there are facilities for surgery and waiting rooms and the other associated infrastructure that comes with a medical centre. It is an important program and I once again urge the minister and the Labor government not to gut this program. It provides important financial support for these smaller communities, not for the big cities. We know that they are going to have 24-hour clinics in some of the cities. But I ask members opposite to think of those communities in rural and remote Australia where the large resources of this nation are located—the oil, gas, beef, coal and hard-rock industries—and support those wealth-generating industries and the communities that support them. Medical infrastructure is one of those vital parts of any successful and healthy community. I look forward with great interest to watching the progress of this bill. I hope it is not just a piece of paper that sits around this place unacted on. I will support the bill. I look forward to the infrastructure rolling out across Australia, not just in selected Labor areas or in the high-population areas but also in the rural and remote communities of Australia.

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